


And you can feel it burning underneath your skin

by parvissira



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-05 01:44:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parvissira/pseuds/parvissira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of prompt responses for Kolms Hunger Game's Ficathon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. No One Listens to A Zombie's Scream

**Title: No One Listens to a Zombie’s Scream**  
Done for the prompt [here](http://kolms.livejournal.com/18020.html?thread=1605476#t1605476) of " **Prim and/or Katniss** , my little sister is a zombie in a body with no soul in a role she has learned to play in a world today where nothing else matters, but it matters

She’s screaming and being held back by Gale’s arms and her sister is climbing on the stage and taking her place and she feels like her soul has cracked. The rest of the day moves forward in a fever dream and she remembers begging her to come back. Begging her to win and then she’s gone.

(in her darkest thoughts she hates Katniss because it wasn’t enough for her to save her life once she has to save it again)

Prim doesn’t know how Gale gets both of them home. Her mother hasn’t said anything since the Justice Building and she feels so numb that tears aren’t coming down. And then she’s shaking and her mother is preparing dinner. Prim wonders what they’ll do now. Her mother has her medicines, but Katniss has always been their breadwinner, their protector, and she can’t quite imagine her mother stepping into that role. 

(she feels a flash of irrational anger that her mother who shut down when her father died doesn’t love Katniss enough to even seem to contemplate shutting down when her own daughter is on her way to her death.)

Morning comes and Prim wants to stay in bed. Wants to crush Buttercup to her and withdraw into herself like her mother did. Katniss may resemble their father more but at heart she’s always been her mother’s child. But there is a goat to milk and the day to face. And by the time she’s milked the goat she finds Katniss has saved her again when Gale drops the results of his morning game hunt by.

(everyone but Katniss sees the way he looks at her and she sometimes wonders how some one who can see ever squirrel in the tree can miss how much Gale loves her...and now she wants to cry because Gale will never have that chance.)

School is horrible. Everyone is happy it isn’t them, that it isn’t Prim, but no one can quite say that when everyone knows what happens to District 12 tributes. But Prim braids her hair and puts on her smile and gets through the days that follow. Though the girl on fire and the unexpected love story and the slow dawning of hope as Katniss makes it through another day. Prim makes it through the horror and love on Gale’s face; the awkward avoidance of Peeta’s brothers; and the teary gaze of Madge by putting one foot in front of another.

(for an instant she wishes she was in the arena because there it was kill or be killed...a binary black and white except Katniss finds away to make it be in color.)

Finally—amazingly—Katniss comes home and everything should be right again but she’s still putting on her smile because Katniss has _changed_. Tension is in the air and everything is wrong. Prim fixes her smile on every morning after she hears Katniss scream her nightmares into the night every night. 

(but she’s screaming on the inside and no one hears.)


	2. There is a reason people fear fire

Title: **There is a reason people fear fire.**  
Done for the prompt [here](http://kolms.livejournal.com/18020.html?thread=1561444#t1561444) of **primrose** , she had a fire inside and that terrified you, you swore that you'd never lose your control

 

Sometimes Primrose thinks Katniss and their mother are more alike than either one would dare admit. Both of them are emotional creatures. 

Prim knows that she is frozen in Katniss’ mind as that young starving sister that Katniss had to save. Prim knows her mother can’t bear to look at Katniss because she looks so much like their father it hurts and that she is frozen in her mother’s mind as that baby girl who is the last link to her beloved husband. 

Her mother’s sadness is a bottomless ocean that will never end. Katniss’ anger at that ocean is a never-ending fire. Prim is deadly afraid of both. 

Oceans drown and fire devours and the bodies that remain are twisted beyond recognition. 

Prim is not surprised when her sister volunteers for her. Prim knows that Katniss would burn the world down to keep her safe.

And then she does. 

Prim sees the moment Katniss gives into her fire in the area. She seems the moment that she forgets that burning down the world only results in scorched earth and burns scars that never fade. 

Katniss may be coming back from the arena but the world has changed and the fire in her soul is consuming the world. Prim doesn’t understand this fire inside of Katniss. She doesn’t understand this madness that will devour the oxygen in a room and burn down an entire country. 

Primrose always was more her father’s child. 

And so she promises to herself that she’ll never be devoured.

The sister she gets back from the 74th games burns infinitely brighter than she did before she left. The sister she gets back from the 74th games has given into her fire so much you can see it the light coming out of her pores. The sister she gets back from the 74th games has given into the fire the same way their mother gave into her ocean and Prim fears between an ocean and a fire no one will be safe. 

Prim fears and holds herself ever more to structure, routine, and control. Her braids are always constrained. Her mind grows cautious and she watches the Quarter Quell come around and know that the fire is just going to get worse. 

She likes thirteen. In Thirteen people neither drown nor burn. In Thirteen, there is order and logic and above all else control. She looks down at her arm feels safe instead of constrained. In Thirteen she beings to hope that she might make it out alive. 

And as the bomb spits fire and devours her she realizes that there is no escaping the flame.


	3. In the Meadow The Whole World Sings

**Title** : In the Meadow the Whole Word Sings  
Done for the prompt [here](http://kolms.livejournal.com/18020.html?thread=1595492#t1595492) of **rue & katniss, au:** Rue is the victor of the 74th Hunger Games. During her Victory Tour she meets Katniss Everdeen, the victor of the 73rd Games. A friendship is born.

 

She gets exactly one sponsor gift in her game. It’s on the second day and it’s rope, a water bottle, and high-energy protein bars. It keeps her safe in the trees and makes it so from the time she climbs the first tree to the time she’s declared victor she never leaves the safety of height.

Even years after she wins she has no clue who sent it.

(Katniss could tell her but the gift was born of frustration that the boy with the bread died in the Bloodbath and the fact that 11 reminds her so much of Prim and so she’ll never tell.)

Truth be told her games are slightly anti-climatic. 

The cameras—and more importantly the game makers—forget about Girl 11 for most of the games. There so many other fascinating tributes: the beautiful girl from one; the crazy pair from two; the engineer from three; the smart girl from five; and her own beast of a partner from eleven.

(Rue could tell them that he’s anything but a beast but who would listen to her anyway.)

By the time the game makers remember her it’s the final four and Thresh is leading in the odds and all they think about what a good show watching Thresh kill her will be. But Glimmer kills Clove and then Cato kills Glimmer shouting only HE was trusted enough to kill Clove and that she was his little girl to kill and Thresh hears that and thinks they mean Rue and so he kills Cato. 

(Thresh could tell Cato he’s sorry but he’s not because Cato would kill Rue without a second glance.)

And then only two remain. And Thresh knows that the game is cruel and that if he hesitates too long something horrible will happen and so he searches the forest for the nightlock berries he recognized from earlier while the game makers think he’s searching for Rue and he whistles four notes and chooses his death.

She climbs out of her tree slightly dehydrated and can’t quite believe she’s made it out alive. 

(The game makers could tell you they didn’t expect this but they shouldn’t have been surprised the poorer districts are always so sentimental.)

\------

Unlike Rue, Katniss’ Game is bloody and speedy and the there hasn’t been as action packed of a game in years. 

Katniss volunteers for Prim, but Gale is chosen from the bowl.

(And everyone in District 12 could tell you that the bowl isn’t random. One of the new peacekeepers wanted to take care of the poaching problem.)

Seam eyes, Seam hair, and Seam skin and Gale and Katniss are best friends that almost look like twins as they cut their way through the games. They score high in evaluations but even with that target on their back they dominate the games. Katniss is no expert bow maker but they steal one from a dead career and make the other and they are deadly and oh so lethal and always guarding each other’s back.

(And everyone in the Seam could tell you how the best hunters are always Katniss&Gale or Gale&Katniss and they bring out the fire and deadliest edges in each other.)

In the end the game makers force them out of their trees and into the range of hand to hand combat because picking people off from the forest trees while fun and unexpected doesn’t give that dramatic finish the games need. And it’s sheer luck that Katniss survives because by the end they may have finished off their last competitor but both are bleeding from gaping wounds and trying to keep it together just a little longer.

(And everyone in the Everdeen and Hawthorne family could tell you that the deepest wound Gale and Katniss received will never heal because the other one is never coming back.)

\----

As always, District 12 is first in the Victor’s tour and in a way it’s the most honest stop because none of the Victors have figured out what exactly it is that they are supposed to do. 

(Even the careers hesitate.)

But District 12 is used to this. 74 years of games and they’ve had exactly three Victors. Twelve has long since realized that they need to say goodbye at the reaping because really no one ever comes back. 

(Even Katniss hesitated when she stood in the place that she called her home.)

Katniss finds Rue down in the Meadow whistling to the mockingjays and Katniss can’t help but add another sister to her family of people that must be protected against the rest of the world...Prim, her mother, Hazelle, Rory, Posy, Vick, Haymitch, and now Rue. It is a short list but no one is allowed to hurt her people.

(Even Rue hesitates before taking Katniss’ hand, but then she sings a song that makes even the mockinjays fall silent and Rue can’t help but trust her.)


	4. But lines can still bisect a plane

**Title** : But even lines can bisect a plane  
Done for the prompt [here](http://kolms.livejournal.com/18020.html?thread=1622884#t1622884) of **Careers + other tributes** , shoot as many bluejays as you want, if you can catch 'em, but remember, it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Every tribute has a line. 

It might be a line that moves. It might be a fluid line. But every one draws a line. Sometimes it’s not particularly grand, sometimes it not particular large, and sometimes it’s not particularly useful but there are lines that every tribute has that are more than just “not scaring away sponsors.”

Most tributes draw the line at cannibalism. Whether sponsors like it or not (they don’t) it’s just too uncomfortable even for the most hardened of careers (they aren’t animals.)

Sin isn’t a concept in Panem. Religion—with it’s trust in something other than the Capitol—has been outlawed for years. And yet, yet, yet, there are still something things that are a sin. 

He will kill if someone is coming to kill them, if he thinks someone might come to kill him, if someone is a threat to him, or if he wants something that person has. 

And yet, there is this strange tension that comes when killing tributes that look like they belong on their mother’s lap. And he tells himself it’s just because it’s no fun to kill someone who isn’t fighting. 

That’s why so many die in the Bloodbath. It’s dangerous. Anyone could kill you. It’s an appropriate place to kill. At the Bloodbath little tributes could be dangerous because everyone is. 

But as the games go on there is still this tension. Little tributes like that tiny bird girl from Eleven who stay out and stay hidden are a threat; are a danger; and yet...and yet there is this line. 

Girl Eleven hasn’t done anything except hide. She doesn’t have anything he needs and she isn’t a threat. He watched her in training and knew that she couldn’t kill a thing. Girl Eleven is just a little girl that he needs to kill so he can be victor.

He’s trained for this whole life. He knows what he needs to do and he tells himself that tension will go away once he wins (even though he knows that’s a lie.) So he takes the opportunity and when one of his traps gets Girl Eleven he spears her as she screams.

As the arrow enters him, Marvel thinks he deserves it. After all, he crossed that line and he can still remember his grandfather’s voice echoing in his ear him when he was still small (like her) to kill as many bluejays as he wanted, if he could catch them, but remember that it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.


	5. Look all you want at the pretty flower but beware the serpent underneath

**Title** : Look all you want at the pretty flower but beware the serpent underneath  
Done for the prompt [here](http://kolms.livejournal.com/18020.html?thread=1654884#t1654884) of **Rue + Tribute!Prim** ; one kills the other.

Sometimes she thinks even Katniss forgets that she’s Seam. 

Her merchant class mother and blue (no no not grey, never grey) eyes and they forget that she’s felt the touch of hunger and the coal dust settling into her skin. 

Katniss is all grey eyes, dark hair, and stubborn pride. Katniss flout the rules to provide them with food. Katniss looks like their father, looks like Gale, looks like history. 

But the best kept secret in twelve is that while Katniss looks Seam paradoxically she’s anything but. Katniss would go into the arena for her sister without a second thought. Katniss is fierce with her heart but once given she refuses to let go. Katniss doesn’t give up and understand that sometimes survival isn’t strength and blood but fitting right where they want you.

(it’s no wonder katniss loves the woods where there is only the bow and arrow, only the hunt and hunter, only black and sun bright white.)

But kids from the Seam know grey. They know that the world is cold and cruel. That death comes always in the mine, in the winter, in lack of everything. They know what needs to be done to survive, that sometimes sacrifices have to be made, and that the Games are heartless but so. is. life.

(prim thinks it’s the coal dust that makes everything fade to an indiscriminate grey.)

The thing about volunteering is that the tribute has to cede their place and Prim knows that Katniss is too soft to actually survive. She’ll see echoes of her sister in every little tribute. She’ll walk too gladly into the grand gesture of martyrdom. Prim knows in her heart that Katniss would never make it out alive and so she doesn’t let go, doesn’t give in. 

Prim makes sure to tremble so bravely for the cameras as she mounts the stage.

(it’s not the flower you need to worry about but the serpent tucked underneath)

Prim hides a savage smile behind when Peeta Mellark is called. Peeta who has been in love with her sister since as long as she’s watched him watching Katniss. Prim can work with this. 

Prim is all proper manners and soft smiles on the train ride and she has Effie wrapped around her finger. Prim is all learned helplessness and (false) stories of how Katniss has talked about Peeta. Prim sees Peeta’s hope flair and harden into diamond hard commitment. Haymitch watches her from behind Seam eyes (grey grey not blue) and she thinks that maybe he realizes eye color isn’t a yardstick for anything. 

Her story is already being told as tragic around the Capitol. 

(didn’t you hear? her older sister tried to save her but the little angel couldn’t bear someone going in her place.)

On her chariot she’s candlelight at night. Soft. Elusive. Flickering. And everyone sighs at the beauty of the littlest frailest child they could imagine. Peeta has his hand protectively on her shoulder and she’s on fire...the girl in candlelight. 

She watches the competition as she practices snares and maps their responses, tracks their relationships, watch as they watch everyone but her and girl eleven. She watches and makes plans. 

(she gets a 6 in training. half her age and exactly what she was aiming for. symmetry always makes a lovely narrative.)

Back before Panem in an old forgotten country there was an old forgotten religion that lit candles for the dead that illuminated beautiful stone. Her interview dress is softness and light and she is innocent fire and prayer and she makes all Capitol citizens want to adopt her into their homes. 

And her ever-shining candlelight protector? He’s just confessed his love for her sister and his promise to do whatever it takes to get her back safe. 

(she always has been good at making people love her.)

And then it’s the Games and she’s scared because she knows if she can get past the _bloodbath_ she can win, but there is no predicting what will happen in the insanity there so she runs and runs and runs and then climbs.

Her first alliance is to play to her strength...fragility. The girl in candlelight and the girl in the trees keep each other safe and hide away while the others take care of the others for them. 

Prim continues to charm the Capitol—and Panem—as the two of them rest in the trees. She even manages a complicated game of patticake to underscore their youth. Sponsor gifts rolls in. Everyone wants them as their littlest sisters. Everyone wants to keep them safe.

(she manages to contain her distaste at just how young rue seems and always keeps the giant boy eleven in the back of her head...unlike the career districts the poorer districts hardly ever kill their district partners and she remembers the worry boy eleven hid as he watched rue...she’s safe by association.)

The numbers go down, down, down, until it’s Thresh and Rue and Peeta and Prim and Cato and Clove and girl Five and boy Three....Prim knows the audience must be blown away to have both all of eleven and all of twelve in the final eight. 

(it goes fast now.)

Girl Five blows up the career’s food (Prim doesn’t care, she’s eaten better in the games than in twelve thanks to the largesse of the Capitol) and Clove takes her out while Cato impales Three on his sword. Peeta dies screaming Katniss’ name as he takes out Clove and Cato finishes Peeta off in a rage while getting injured himself. Thresh manages to finish Cato off and then Prim sends Rue off to bring him to them.

(my momma’s a healer rue, maybe I can help. but you have to go so he trusts me.)

Thresh sees Rue and does exactly the foolish thing Prim knew he would—she understands really, no 18 year old could be a victor in district 11 if he hurt his little (innocent so much innocent blood) partner. Thresh takes one look at her and walks right into danger. Prim knew this in her bones because Thresh is just as foolish as Katniss and doesn’t recognize that you do what you must to survive and sort the rest out later.

(and then there was one.)

And it’s a tea party set for two and Prim the proper little hostess offers the fresh berries she’s found to Rue first because no good hostess eats before her guest and Rue, who by this point trusts Prim eats the berries and is dead before Prim has time to serve herself.

(prim knows the right angle to play and she looks up at the screen and looks heartbroken and watches everyone forget that her mother’s father ran an apothecary.)


	6. dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Title: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

Done for the prompt [here](http://kolms.livejournal.com/18020.html?thread=1466724#t1466724). of **careers,** all men must die / all men must serve

_To suffer hardness with good cheer,  
In sternest school of warfare bred,_

District Two is favored. District Two is needed. District Two is loved. 

This they know from the drawing of first breath to their last hopefully blood filled breath. 

But what District One with their finery and glitter and shimmer sometimes forget and what District Two knows without question is that love is hard and cruel and unforgiving. 

_Our youth should learn; let steed and spear  
Make him one day the Parthian's dread;_

It is an honor beyond honors to be chosen to train for the life of a tribute. All children dream of proving their love in the arena and showing their prowess to the rest of Panem so that the rest of the world knows and sees that all men must die. 

Cato comes from a line of tribute trainees and his destiny is set from the moment he opens his eyes. And he is honored. And he will bring glory. And he will show the rest of Panem the reason District Two is beloved.

Clove gets there by her own ingenuity and she never forgets to who she owes her greatest debt. She knows the Capitol has given her a chance to become something more and a chance to hone the dark edges of her soul. And even if she never makes tribute she will carry this duty onward as a Peacekeeper.

_Cold skies, keen perils, brace his life.  
Methinks I see from rampired town_

And when they are chosen together there is no one they would rather have at their side. Both knowing that the only way they will die is as sacrifice to the other. Both knowing that they will make the rest of the earth shake with their loyalty. 

They will not show fear. They will not show anything but their strong carriage and beloved visage when they arrive. 

Still, the first glimpse of the Capitol for them is awe inspiring. It’s all shine and gloss and like a shimmering beacon of civilization. They think it is right that this glowing city isn’t dimmed by the cost of duty and honor when District Two goes to war for them. 

_Some battling tyrant's matron wife,  
Some maiden, look in terror down,—_

In the Training Center they can’t help but sneer at those who don’t understand the honor to be chosen; at those that don’t honor the Capitol by protesting; and at those that betray their Districts with their weakness.

In the darkness of night Clove and Cato find each other’s heartbeats and hear the drums of war in their ears.

_“Ah, my dear lord, untrain'd in war!  
O tempt not the infuriate mood_

And then there is blood, blood, and more blood. There is a missed hit but it is forgotten as another falls before her knife and his sword. 

Fierce and proud they emerge from the Bloodbath. 

District Two has shown their devotion and Cato spares a glance over at his compatriot. This year is their year.

_Of that fell lion I see! from far  
He plunges through a tide of blood!“_

And some how even with their training drills and practice and experience the arena is nothing like they expected. 

Where is there honor in avoiding combat and dropping a tracker jacker nest on fellow citizens?

Where is there glory in crying for the fallen? 

_What joy, for fatherland to die!  
Death's darts e'en flying feet o'ertake,_

She feels no joy as her Career trained mind realizes she’s taken her final blow. She feels no joy in this death. She feels no joy as she screams for the boy that understands her.

And then there are tears and promises and she is scared. 

She should feel honored but all she can feel is her body slowly shutting down.

_Nor spare a recreant chivalry,  
A back that cowers, or loins that quak_

This is an honor he tells himself as he watches the life flee her face. This is an honor he tells himself as he tracks down and makes Eleven pay. This is an honor he tells himself as he sees her eyes again

Love is not gentle. Love is not kind. 

District Two is honored and beloved but all men must serve.


End file.
